


Photos in the dark

by JaceRMontague



Series: Prompts [5]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: AU, Emma's a photographer, F/F, Fluff, Photography, Regina is self conscious, i wanna say slowburn but this is literally 2163 word long, so how slow can it be?, they're students
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 13:24:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,165
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8447614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaceRMontague/pseuds/JaceRMontague
Summary: Emma completely forgets she has a photography assignment due the next morning and the only person who is available to model for her at midnight in a forest is her self-concious, painfully camera shy, best friend and dorm-mate.aka prompt 232"my photography project is due tomorrow and I know you don’t like to have your photo taken but I need a model now” au





	

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not massively sure how i feel about this, it's good enough to post but not my best piece of writing but it's been a while since I posted on here and needed to post something because it's bugging me i've been away from ao3 for so long. 
> 
> In other news, i'm working on an actual manuscript, a long multichap that i want nearly finished before i start posting it on here to stop six week chapter breaks like with BK, and four (five?) one shots for here!
> 
> I hope you're all good!

‘But Reginnnnnnnnnaaaa’ Emma whined

‘Emma. No.’

‘Regina.’

‘No.’

‘Please.’

‘No.’

‘Please.’

‘Emma. I said no.’

‘But Gina’

‘But Emma.’

‘But- ‘

‘Emma! Stop!’

‘Regina. Listen. I know you hate having your photograph taken. I know. I know. And I’m sorry to ask but I fucked up and I thought the deadline was next week not tomorrow so please for the love of god please just fucking help me and let me take some photos of you so I don’t fail this course.’

‘What do I get out of this.’

‘The undying love and gratitude of your best friend in the world, of course.’

‘You’re my only friend in the world. And still no’

‘I will buy you Starbucks every morning for a month.’

‘No.’

‘Starbucks every morning and dinner twice a week?’

‘No.’

‘Starbucks, Dinner, and I’ll clean the dorm’

‘Nope.’

‘Starbucks, dinner, clean the dorm and I’ll ring your mother and tell her you can’t go to thanksgiving or Christmas this year because you’re working here for extra credit so you don’t have to talk to her.’

Regina hesitated for a second. Not telling her mother she didn’t intend on returning home now – or ever, for that matter – sounded good. She didn’t know what she was going to do over the holidays, she wasn’t working at the school either. Between her not wanting to go home and Emma not having a home the two of them would probably just stay in the college and spend the holidays together.

‘No.’

‘But nearly? Okay,’ Emma thought about it for a second. ‘Starbucks, dinner, the dorm, talk to the devil herself, vodka, my study notes for that module you haven’t finished, and my copy of Paper Airplanes.’

‘You’re desperate, aren’t you?’ Regina said, amusement glittering in her eyes.

‘Very much so.’

‘Still no.’

‘Why won’t you do this for me? Your best friend?’

‘Because no’

‘I’m begging you. Please, please be my model for the evening.’

‘Fine.’

‘You just wanted me to beg, didn’t you?’

‘Yep. But all the extras are lovely bonuses.’

Emma glared at Regina and went on to explain that Regina’s face probably wouldn’t even be seen in the photos and it wasn’t going to be part of the exhibit she was working on which was compiled completely of nude and partially nude photographs. That the piece Emma was handing in tomorrow would be a slightly experimental piece of art taken in the dark with just two ring lights and some fairy lights strung up in trees. That Regina would be sitting in trees and standing between trees with her back to the camera. That Regina would be in all black except for the red blazer she owned.

Regina nodded and agreed with what Emma was saying with no arguments which was an absolute rarity for the brunette.

She sat on her bed as she watched Emma pull all her camera gear from under her own bed and grabbed two of her ring lights.

‘You’ll need the blazer and your coat. It’s fucking freezing, I’ll be as fast as I can taking the photos. I know you hate having your photo taken and I don’t want to make it more painful for you than it has to be.’

Regina admired that as desperate as Emma was for the perfect shot – Emma was always desperate for the perfect shot. She was chasing the photographic dragon – that the blonde was taking how Regina felt into consideration.

Regina nodded ‘that’s okay. If you crank the heater in your car up for the ride back and we can stop at that diner on the way back to campus for hot chocolate I don’t mind.’

‘You’ll regret saying that’ Emma warned with a grin.

Regina knew she would but it didn’t matter. As long as Emma was happy, it didn’t matter.

After ten minutes, Regina had got changed into a black turtle neck, black jeans, black socks and converse and had her red blazer draped over one arm, her scarf, hat and warm jacket draped over the other.

‘Ready?’ She asked Emma who had her camera and lenses in a rucksack on her back, a tripod hanging from a strap around her shoulder, ring lights held in one hand and some light reflection props that Regina could never remember the name of under Emma’s other arm.

Emma nodded and the two of them headed down the stairs of their dormitory block and to Emma’s yellow bug that Regina loved to insult because she knew that it wound up Emma.

‘how’s my favourite death trap on wheels today? It’s not going to break down while were in the middle of the bloody forest, is it?’

‘Hey! Don’t insult my baby!’ Emma remarked, thoroughly offended ‘You’ll be just fine, won’t you?’ Emma spoke softly to the car.

‘I still can’t believe you talk to your car.’ Regina sighed as she opened the boot and helped Emma load it with all the camera gear; she’d tagged along to so many of Emma’s photography shoots – both college and professional (and more importantly – paid) – that she knew that every piece of gear had a specific place inside the boot. Once everything was loaded to Emma’s meticulous standard Regina placed her blazer on top of it and slammed the boot shut.

By the time the two of them had reached the forest three quarters of an hour away from campus it was after midnight, pitch black and, freezing.

‘Fuck me’ Regina muttered through chattering teeth.

‘You wish.’ Emma quipped back with a laugh and teasing smile as she set up her tripod on the muddy ground and began spinning her camera into place while Regina took a lighting rig and began setting up one of the lights; again, she’d been to so many of Emma’s photo shoots that she knew exactly what to do and how to do it. She’d been following Emma to photography shoots for three years now and had begun because she had nothing better to do on a Saturday afternoon and Emma wanted the company after a pretty harsh break up with her now ex-girlfriend. Also, trip to the park to watch Emma take photos in the blazing summer sun had sounded fun.

Unlike now.

It was November, it was freezing, it was cold, muddy, dark, eerie and Regina was going to be in front of the camera instead of beside it.

This was nowhere near Regina’s idea of fun.

She regretting telling Emma that she didn’t mind if the shoot took it’s time.

Once she had completed setting up both lighting rigs Regina walked back to the car and pulled on the red blazer. She also pulled on her hat, her coat and her scarf.

‘It’s not that cold.’ Emma laughed when she saw the brunette.

‘I’m freezing.’ Regina whined.

‘I promise I won’t take long; we’ll get some shots and we’ll leave. As long as I hand something in it’ll be alright. I have enough credit to do well as long as I hand something in.’

‘Emma. We’ll keep going until you get the shot you want, okay?’ Regina mentally smacked herself for opening her mouth again.

She wanted Emma to do well, she did. But it was cold and Regina was uncomfortable with the idea people would see photos of her.

‘The camera’s ready. Are you?’

Regina shrugged off the coat and pulled the scarf and hat off also.

‘Where do you need me?’

‘Under the fairy lights.’

The two of them had strung fairy lights around a few branches, zig zagging between trees.

Regina stepped forwards and stood as central as she could without sinking into the mud.

‘Perfect. Turn your back to the camera. Head up. Stand like you do in the hall when you’re about to give that plastic bitch in your Lit class a piece of your mind. Absolutely perfect.’

Ten minutes after the first shot, Regina was perched somewhat precariously at the end of a thick branch half way up a tree, a ring light tied to the trunk with the tripod’s strap the only lighting, Regina’s feet hanging well above the fairy light they hand strung up.

‘If I fall I’ll kill you, Swan.’

‘If you fall you’ll be dead, it’s quite the drop, Mills’ Emma shouted back.

‘have I told you I hate you?’

‘Every time you climbed half an inch going up that bastard tree.’

‘Good.’ Regina said laughing.

The flash of the camera went off and stunned Regina.

‘Hey! That’s not fair, you didn’t say you were taking a photo!’ Regina called down.

 ‘I was testing the lighting. I won’t use it in my work.’

Just under an hour later everything was back in the boot with the exception of Regina’s blazer. That had been draped around Emma when Emma had decided that it was in fact ‘Fucking balls cold out’ and ‘besides, I need a few shots of you without the blazer.’

Emma drove to the diner a few miles away from campus and the two sat in a booth at the back of the diner drinking cinnamon hot chocolate.

‘I’m still annoyed you took that photo of me laughing in that tree.’ Regina admitted between sips of the hot chocolate.

‘‘Shut up Gi. I love it. Its candid. It’s you. I love it.’

Regina smiled.

‘you make a great model, by the way. I don’t know why you hate it so much.’ Emma continued.

‘you do.’ Regina argued.

It was true. Emma knew vague details about how Regina’s mother had pushed her into being a child model and Regina’s childhood had been filled with diets and ‘if the camera adds ten pounds then how many were on you?’s.  Emma couldn’t understand how someone could be so cruel to Regina. Regina was beautiful.

‘You’re right. I do. But you shouldn’t be. You’re stunning. In fact, you’re beautiful.’

‘Are you coming on to me, Miss Swan?’

‘I might be.’

 

Three months later Emma and her girlfriend walked around the empty gallery, Emma had completed her exhibit that morning and in exactly one hour and forty-three minutes it would open to the public. Emma led her girlfriend from room to room showing her cityscapes, abstract wedding photos she had taken, light paintings.

‘Em, where’s the nude exhibit?’

‘I scraped it. I found something I was passionate about and wanted that here instead.’ Emma admitted.

‘What was that, then?’

‘You.’  Emma said as she led her girlfriend into the final room in the gallery.

Regina grinned and blushed, she loved that she was Emma’s passion but she hated that people were going to see photos of her.

They walked around the area where Emma had told Regina the nude shots were going to be. Instead of being faced with the bare flesh of strangers Regina was faced with herself.

‘whoa’ she managed to breath out. Her mouth was slightly agape for most of the time she was looking at photos of herself.

She wasn’t even sure it was herself.

She looked so happy, so free in most of the photos. She realised that many of the photos were taken when she was looking straight at Emma, they were taken when Emma was claiming to be looking at photos on the camera and instead was taking photos of Regina. There were photos of Regina reading and working, there was a multi frame piece of when Regina was on the phone to her mother, telling her that Regina wouldn’t not be returning home again. Emma had somehow, without Regina even realising there was a camera in the room, managed to capture the exact moment Regina had realised she was free from her mother’s clutches and her emotions had changed. In the first frame, she looked scared, the second she looked relieved, in the third she looked lighter, freer. And in the fourth she was smiling.

The two walked around, Regina asking how’s and when’s about every photo in the room apart from one.

They came to the last photo in the room, ‘this one is my favourite photo I’ve ever taken.’ Emma whispered.

It was Regina in almost all black clothes except for a red blazer, her feet blurred slightly from where they swung feet above fairy lights, her head titled backwards ever so slightly from the laughter, a small glare from the ring light.

Normally Emma wouldn’t have allowed a slightly blurred photo with a small glare in the centre left remain out of the deleted folder.  Now Emma claimed that it was her favourite photo.

The placard beneath read.

‘Title: The night it all started.  
Description: I love you.’

Regina stared at the placard for a solid minute at least. She could feel Emma’s breath pause beside her. She squeezed Emma’s hand softly before turning to the blonde and kissing her gently, both of their eye’s tearing up slightly.

‘I love you, too.’

‘I’m so glad you dragged me in front of the camera that night.’

‘So am I.’ Emma whispered.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you all liked it, kudos and comments are, as always, appreciated :)


End file.
